| | July 20208Global economy has been deeply affected by the ongoing Coronavi-rus crisis. Coronavirus affected patients require robust medi-cal treatment; but ironically, most of the hospitals have scaled-down their operations due to the ongoing lockdown and consequent restrictions on elective surgeries to reduce chances of infection. When, if at all the lockdown will be lift-ed, remains uncertain, there-by increasing challenges for healthcare providers.Today, most of the private hospitals in India are running at less than 50 percent of their bed occupancies. This has had serious impact on their financial viability. Depressed revenues mean inadequate working capital to run hos-pital operations. Most hospi-tals are struggling with cash flows to pay salaries to their employees, clearing payments to vendors, suppliers and other business partners. Cost containment measures have therefore become unavoidable. These include scaling-down of unrequired activities and departments. Some hospitals have taken a decision to con-vert doctors on `fee for service' models, taking voluntary sal-ary cuts and, in extreme cases, even laying-off employees. Al-though central & state govern-THOUGHT LEADERSHIPResponse of the Healthcare Industry in Covid TimesBy Hemraj Singh Parmar, CEO, BR LifeSanjay Bahl, MD & CEOHemraj has been associated with BR Life for over two years now, prior to which he has handled key responsibilities across Ivy Hospital, Global Hospitals, Obijackson Group of Companies, and International Oncology Services, to name a few.
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